Keypoints
- Social-emotional learning can reduce future involvement in crime: Teaching children how to manage emotions, resolve conflict and communicate effectively helps address risk factors long before law enforcement intervention is needed
- Law enforcement can play a proactive role in youth development: By partnering with schools and engaging with students early, officers can reinforce social-emotional skills that promote positive behavior and long-term success
- Early investment in social-emotional skills benefits entire communities: Students who develop these skills are more likely to succeed academically, enter the workforce prepared and contribute to safer, healthier communities
Lexipol cofounder Gordon Graham believes law enforcement has an important role to play in shaping the future of America’s youth – and that role starts long before a child ever enters the criminal justice system.
“We have kids who don’t want to go to school,” Graham said. “We have kids who can’t communicate effectively. This is a huge problem lying in wait and needs attention from all involved stakeholders. These kids are the future of our nation.”
One way to address those challenges is by helping young people develop the skills they need to manage emotions, communicate effectively and resolve conflict early in life.
Unfortunately, very few children have historically had access to this type of development program. But today, a nonprofit organization called Equip Our Kids! is reaching out in order to partner law enforcement agencies with educators across the country to help children build those skills to become productive adults who are less likely to follow the path to violence and crime.
Consider a 10-year-old boy who is struggling academically, frequently leaving his assignments incomplete and receiving poor grades on his report cards. His frustration with academics spills over into his social life, and by high school, he has become known as the class bully. In his teen years, he has several brushes with the law. Though not charged with any serious crime, his name is now on the radar of local law enforcement. The boy just barely graduates with his high school diploma.
He has no significant job skills and takes the first opportunity he can get – a low-paying retail position. He never learned how to communicate well with others, so he’s soon fired. Not long after, his girlfriend tells him she’s tired of fighting and breaks up with him. Feeling destitute, he turns to theft as a way to make ends meet. Before long, he’s arrested for robbery and spends time in jail.
Many might say this boy was “failed by the system” and that any number of adults could have intervened at some point in his life to try to help. Unfortunately, many kids are in the position of this boy – not knowing how to set goals, manage conflict or handle stress. This skill set, mostly called social-emotional intelligence or social-emotional learning (SEL), and sometimes referred to as character development, isn’t universally taught to our youth, but when it is, it can make a staggering difference for students, schools and the community at large.
What is social-emotional intelligence?
The word intelligence typically brings to mind a person who excels academically. They’re considered bright and are often successful. Yet there’s much more to intelligence than having a knack for math or science – the social and emotional parts of our brains require just as much attention.
Conceptually, SEL began at the Yale School of Medicine in the 1960s as a way to help improve academic performance in elementary schools in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1987, a group of researchers and educators established the New Haven Social Development program, and SEL training slowly grew across the country.
The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), founded in 1994, describes SEL as having five core concepts:
- Self-awareness of one’s own emotions and the ability to view oneself positively.
- The ability to regulate one’s emotions and behaviors, including the ability to self-motivate and set personal goals.
- Awareness of the emotions of others and how to conduct oneself in social situations.
- The capacity to build relationships with others and communicate within them.
- Decision-making skills that include problem-solving and self-accountability.
Today, social-emotional intelligence is only comprehensively taught to a fraction of students in our country. However, it gained a foothold in many U.S. schools as a meaningful response to the youth mental health crisis declared in 2021 by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who noted that students were returning to schools with exceptionally high rates of depression, anxiety and alienation resulting from their enforced COVID-19 home restraints.
Acknowledging that there were not nearly enough school counselors to deal with such widespread student pain, and supported by major child psychology organizations, the Biden administration invested in SEL as a way to teach students how to manage their emotional states and reactions as well as how to create mutually supportive relationships with each other.
Recent budget restraints and shifts in educational focus have set back the SEL movement at a time that 50% of students still say they are over-stressed and companies are even more public about their need for a workforce with the “durable” or “soft skills” that this learning imparts.
Through partnership with law enforcement agencies and businesses nationwide – the two sectors he believes can really make a difference – Jay Levin’s nonprofit Equip Our Kids! is working to change that.
The skills to get along
Levin began his career as a New York journalist covering human development movements, including modern therapy techniques in local drug treatment centers.
“I was interested in why the world has the difficulties it does, why we create so much pain in the world and so much disruption, and what are some of the root causes of it,” he said. Witnessing change before his eyes among the individuals he was reporting on, Levin was convinced that people can change and one of the elements of that change can be therapy.
His immersion in human development grew. Levin moved to Los Angeles and founded LA Weekly and continued regular coverage in its journalism. Later, he took courses in spiritual psychology and conducted workshops.
His interest in social well-being continued. He spent one year volunteering at a juvenile detention facility in Malibu, California, teaching incarcerated youth about emotional management skills and how to better their lives.
The kids were receptive.
“It reinforced to me that if I could teach people skills and their lives would change, it validated that the human species needs another skill set just to get along with each other,” he said.
Developing a new SEL program
A phone call from a close friend solidified Levin’s involvement in promoting this new set of skills. He was invited to visit a school that had implemented social-emotional learning – and the results were shocking.
“The kids were absolutely amazing in how they had been trained to deal with conflict with each other,” he said. Seeing how easily the children picked up on the training, Levin decided to bring SEL curriculum to students nationwide.
One of six nonprofits Levin has founded to date, Equip Our Kids! markets to parents, educators and the public the value of teaching students the core concepts of social-emotional intelligence, including how to manage stress and setbacks, empathy, conflict resolution, teamwork, problem-solving, creative thinking and how to set and achieve goals.
Equip Our Kids! also provides parents and children with an EQ Toolkit as a helpful starting point. Instructional videos are also available through the group’s free streaming service Equip Kids+. Alliances with educator organizations that promote SEL in nearly 30 states have been developed, and annual SEL Day webinars and videos created by Equip Our Kids! help further educate parents, the public and legislators on the importance of the curriculum.
Levin describes a range of benefits that he and his team have seen firsthand after SEL has been taught in schools. Students earn higher test scores and benefit from a better learning environment as they are able to communicate and collaborate effectively with their peers. Resiliency, initiative and increased happiness are common traits among youth who gain social-emotional intelligence.
“Improving education is a great equalizer. If we can get kids educated and socially aware of what’s going on, we can fix this country.”
Schools that provide this learning also benefit from having a student body that excels academically and socially with a decreased need for discipline. Overall, studies have shown children who learn SEL early on grow to be adults who contribute productively to the local workforce, enjoy better mental health and are less inclined to resort to crime or violence.
“Kids with this training are coming out of schools in really good shape to provide a better economy and a better workforce,” Levin explained. “There are profound financial, community health, mental and physical health reasons to get behind this.”
How law enforcement plays a role
Parents and teachers aren’t the only adults who can help shape young children’s minds. Levin’s group is eager to build relationships with local law enforcement agencies, as officers can help play a critical role in promoting the importance of SEL and reaching kids at an early age.
Both Graham and Levin see classroom visits as a first step in getting law enforcement involved in aiding Equip Our Kids!’ cause. School resource officers, along with patrol officers or detectives, can partner with a local school and arrange to spend time reinforcing to students about goal setting, managing stress and resolving conflict – concepts that officers themselves must master to be proficient in their careers.
Crucially, emphasizing social-emotional intelligence works as a long-term crime prevention strategy, as children who can build relationships, treat others with respect and aim to be productive members of society grow into adults who will steer clear of drugs, violence and crime. The curriculum benefits all students in this way, often even more so those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds.
To learn more about how you and your agency can support the Equip Our Kids! mission, visit their website.
